This Day in History is DUE’s daily dose of trivia for all the history buffs out there. So sit back and take a ride of all the fascinating things that happened on 2nd May!
People are trapped in history and history is trapped in people, and hence, every day has been a significant one in the foibles of history. Now, let’s take a tour of “This Day in History – 2nd May”.
1521: Leonardo da Vinci dies
Leonardo da Vinci was an Italian painter, draftsman, sculptor, architect, and engineer. His most iconic paintings include the “Mona Lisa” and “The Last Supper”. His designs for flying machines and studies on optics and perspective were groundbreaking but never constructed due to the technological constraints during the 1500s. He died at the age of 67 in France, on this day in 1521.
1921: Satyajit Ray is born
Satyajit Ray was a Bengali motion-picture director, writer, and illustrator who brought Indian cinema to world recognition. He is popularly regarded as one of the greatest filmmakers in film history and is renowned for his works such as The Apu Trilogy, The Music Room, The Big City, and Charulata. He was born on 2nd May 1921 in Calcutta, India.
2000: President Bill Clinton announces GPS access for the public
On this day in 2000, the US government under President Bill Clinton granted civilians access to un-degraded GPS signals. Prior to that, the public GPS signals were intentionally degraded for national security reasons. This practice was known as Selective Availability. In order to make GPS more responsive to civil and commercial users worldwide, the US government discontinued its use of selective availability.
2011: Osama bin Laden killed
On this day in 2011, the Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden was killed by US Special Forces in a top-secret operation at Bin laden’s compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan. The operation was code-named “Neptune Spear” and ended a nearly 10-year search for bin Laden, following his role in the September 11 attacks on the United States in 2001.
2018: Kanpur declared the world’s most polluted city by WHO
World health organization’s (WHO) global air pollution database released in Geneva on 2nd May 2018, according to which Kanpur was the world’s most polluted city with PM 2.5 concentration of 173 micrograms per cubic meter. Not only this but WHO data from 4,000 cities in 100 countries showed that the top 14 most polluted cities in the world are in India.
